


Born Bad, Bred Bad

by Innwich



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Manipulation, Pre-Canon, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7577209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel had always known there was something fundamentally broken inside of himself that couldn’t be fixed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Reaper’s voice line, “I’m not a psychopath. I’m a high-functioning psychopath.”
> 
> Hover over words for translations.

“Think I’ll shoot this place up and break out the lowlifes? I put most of them in here,” Gabriel said.

“Sorry,” the prison officer said. “I can’t let you in with weapons. The warden said no exceptions.”

“Is that right? Warden Sanderson makes plenty of exceptions for you and your colleagues,” Gabriel sneered, but he unloaded his guns and put them in a box. The prison officer took the box with a stony face, and stowed it in a locker. The prison system was a stinking hotbed of abuses and corruptions, but it preferred to keep them in the family behind ten-foot walls and chain link fences. Gabriel had leaned on the warden for more than a week before he had agreed to let him arrange this meeting outside of visiting hours. Gabriel didn’t intend to be escorted out of the prison before he finished what he came here to do.

The visiting room was empty when Gabriel walked through the heavy door. The prisoner side of the visiting room was visible through the row of glass windows that lined a far wall. In front of the windows were a row of stools. The hard plastic seats had been worn down to a dull blue, and the metal legs were scuffed and bolted down to the gray floor. Gabriel was sitting down and getting comfortable, when the door on the other side of the glass open, and McCree was marched into the room by two prison officers.

McCree was wearing an orange uniform and chains around his wrists and ankles. He had a pair of black eyes, a cut lip, and bandages around the top of his head. His shaggy hair had been cut so short that it didn’t cover his ears or the back of his neck, and his cheeks were smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Gabriel could see why McCree had grown out a beard when he had been playing cowboy with the Deadlock Gang. He could be mistaken for a college frat boy without it. Nothing like the grizzled gunrunner that had topped the most wanted list of the Interpol and the FBI.

Gabriel waited for McCree to be pushed into the seat in front of his window, before he picked up the phone mounted on the wall and rapped his knuckles on the glass.

For a moment, it looked like McCree wasn’t going to pick up the phone on his side of the glass. Gabriel rapped on the glass again. McCree looked over his shoulder at the prison guard standing by the door of the visiting room, and visibly sighed. He picked up his phone and squeezed out a smile, which turned into a grimace when it tugged at the scab on his lip. “Well, if it ain’t Commander Reyes. I had a feeling I’d be seeing you.”

“How was your big day?” Gabriel said into the phone.

“I went a few rounds with folks that wanted a piece of ol’ Jesse,” McCree said. “It ain’t nothing to write home about. But I’m sure you knew that already.”

“Yeah, I heard there was a real nasty catfight. I heard they had to put you in solitary for your protection,” Gabriel said. “You’re not so tough without your fancy guns, are you?”

McCree ducked his head and looked to the side. If he were wearing his cowboy hat, he would have hidden his eyes. Since he was bare-headed, he just looked like a sulking schoolboy as he muttered, “Don’t gotta make me sound like a yellow-belly. I’m a sharpshooter; I don’t claim to be no judo master.”

“No shit, you put no weight behind your punches. I’ve taken harder hits in pillow fights,” Gabriel said.

“Now you’re just aiming below the belt,” McCree said resentfully.

“No, I’m laying it out for you: You’re a cream puff,” Gabriel said. “How do you plan on surviving the rest of your sentence?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo. I know the drill and how to take care of myself. Just got a little too famous these last few years, is all.” McCree shrugged, and then winced when he moved his right shoulder too much. “‘Fraid I’ll have to decline your offer like last time.”

It was nothing that Gabriel hadn’t heard during the arrest and before the trial and after the conviction. It would be nice if McCree’s little lesson yesterday had broken him enough to give Gabriel the answer he wanted to hear, but it looked like Gabriel would have to do this the long way. “You like rotting in supermax this much, huh?”

McCree scratched his bare chin and the chains on his wrists clinked over the phone line. “You ever been in prison before?”

Gabriel snorted. “Never have the occasion. I was too busy fighting tin cans and being shot at by punks like you.”

“That’s what I thought.” McCree chuckled. “Not many people know this, but a prison is kinda like a school. You get to meet people who are the best at what they do, and learn from them. If you’re not a total bastard, some of them know people on the outside and are happy to put in a good word. As a matter of fact, that’s how I got into gunrunning after my last stint.”

“Except you won’t have a chance of getting out of this school for another twenty five years.”

“I knew what I was getting into when I joined the Deadlock Gang. I ain’t ratting on them to get myself out of this jam.” McCree stuck up his middle finger and laid it against the window. “You can take your deal and shove it up where the sun don’t shine.”

Gabriel smiled thinly and crossed his arms. “You’re a tough sell, McCree.”

“That’s ‘cause I ain’t looking to buy,” McCree said, putting down his finger. He was grinning so widely that the cut on his lip had split. He looked like a damn kid that thought he had been a rebel because he dared to say a rude word in front of his class and his middle school teacher. If he were a dog, he would be flattening his ears and wagging his tail and asking for the stick to be thrown again. It was pathetically easy to let McCree thought he had won. “C’mon now, I’ve heard your pitches before. You gotta try harder than that.”

Gabriel leaned forward, and put his elbows on the countertop that jutted out from under the glass window. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “Tell me, are you a gambling man?”

McCree levelled him with a measuring gaze, and Gabriel returned it with more to spare. He was trying to see where the tracks were leading him and poking in the sand for traps that Gabriel had known better than to lay right next to the bait. “I’m surprised you have to ask. I did business with outlaws and got into shootouts with sonsuvbitches meaner than me. Gambling with my life is all I’ve been doing for the last couple of years now.”

“Good, then you know what I mean when I say you’ve been playing with a shit hand since the day you were born.” Gabriel lounged back in his seat. “Some people can beat the odds and climb up in the world, but you aren’t one of them. I’m calling it: When you die, what you see won’t look any better than the inside of this prison.”

McCree’s smile didn’t widen but it didn’t wane. It was frozen on his face, and matched the lack of warmth in his eyes. McCree looked less like he was smiling and more like a cornered dog with its teeth bared. “You’re trying, but I’ve heard worse insults than that.”

“I don’t care your mom is a two-dime whore that gets fucked in the ass six times a night and twice in the morning, McCree. Shut up and listen,” Gabriel said evenly. “I’m offering you a job on my goddamn team.”

McCree had turned an ugly shade of pink. He opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut without a word. He repeated the motion several times but not a peep made it out of his gob. Either McCree couldn’t make up his mind on which profanities to throw back at Gabriel, or Gabriel had done the impossible and rendered him speechless. McCree settled on a strained “What’s that?”

“You heard me,” Gabriel said. “I’m offering you a position on my team. You’ll be bound to serve for a year, but after that, you can leave anytime you want. Your sentence will be wiped clean, and you’ll be a free man for as long as you keep your nose clean. How does that sound?”

“You’re out of your mind.” McCree stared at him.

“Did I mention you’ll be paid the same rate as the other agents? It’ll be more money than you’ll earn sewing jeans for the next twenty five years in here,” Gabriel said.

McCree clasped his hands and rested his mouth behind them. He searched Gabriel’s face with eyes that were sharp enough to cut a lesser man open. “One thing I learnt from dealing with crooks, is if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. What’s the catch?”

“I’m glad you ask. Maybe you aren’t so stupid after all,” Gabriel drawled. “The catch is, kid, you’ll answer to me. You won’t take orders from the U.N. or anyone in the Overwatch chain-of-command. You go where I tell you to go. When I tell you to jump, you better ask how high, otherwise I’ll drop you right back into this hole.”

“No can do.” McCree dropped his clasped hands. “This is just a roundabout way to make me talk, ain’t it? I ain’t selling out my gang for you.”

“Do I look like I care? I don’t need a line on the Deadlock Gang anymore,” Gabriel said shortly. “My team confiscated their last stash of firearms. Two gangs have put a hit on them. One want their guns back and the other one want their money back. Your buddies will be dead if they so much as try to sell Girl Scout cookies.”

“Hell’s bells.” McCree let out a long sigh. His head drooped forward and his shoulders slackened like the air had been let out of them. “Those stupid assholes.”

Gabriel let him process that information and mentally counted to ten. His pocket was heavy with a pack of cigarettes that he had bought from the news agency yesterday, and Gabriel was itching to light up a cigarette to fill the seconds.

“I don’t have a hidden agenda, McCree. I want you on Blackwatch because you have potential,” Gabriel said, tapped a finger on the glass. “You don’t need jail time; what you need is a chance to ride in and save the day and be a big damn hero.”

McCree laughed shortly, like a bark. “I don’t know who’s been telling you tales, but I’ve killed more than a handful of folks. Men that were someone’s fathers and sons and brothers.”

“I didn’t say you’re Mother Theresa,” Gabriel scoffed. “But you’re the only man from Deadlock Gang I’ve offered this job to. Do you know why?”

This time, McCree’s smile reached his eyes. “At this point, I figure I’m a special snowflake.”

“One in a dozen, if you’re lucky,” Gabriel said. “But you stuck around for the bitter end when my team raided your gang’s hideout. That counted for something. You’re a cowboy who actually acts like the ones in the movies.”

McCree shook his head and laughed to himself, but the tips of his ears were flushed red. “Now you’re just buttering me up.”

“Glad to know you’ve finally noticed.” Gabriel stood to leave. “I like you, McCree, but I don’t like you that much. The offer won’t be on the table forever. In fact, I’m getting tired of needling you.”

Gabriel drove back to the motel where he was staying. He spent the day in his room to read through the reports that were coming in about a cargo of black market human organs that would be crossing into international waters later that night. He told the team to go ahead with the operation without him.

The next morning, Gabriel was eating a piece of dry toast in the kitchenette in his room when his phone rang.

“‘Morning, Commander,” Warden Sanderson said stiffly. “Come on down to my office. The convict is yours.”


	2. Chapter 2

** Decades Ago **

**Joseph** : BUSTED  
 **You** : they didnt see shit  
 **Joseph** : thats not what i heard. mike saw you taking money out of someones bag   
**You** : i didnt do shit  
 **You** : mike is a liar  
 **Joseph** : lol  
 _Joseph is typing…_

Gabriel switched between the chats on his phone. No one else was talking in his other chat groups, but his phone was more interesting than the smug tuna man grinning out of the ad on the back of the bus in front of the car, or the guitar sonata on the radio that Mom was humming along to. He had planned to get in an hour on the computer before starting on his homework, but he wouldn’t have enough time to do that when he got home because he was stuck in this shitty traffic because Mr. Rousse had decided to call Mom into school over nothing.

His phone lit up with a new message.

 **Joseph** :he follows you around like a kicked puppy. why would he lie?  
 **You** : because maybe hes the one who stole it?  
 **You** : he follows me cos hates my guts. yours too  
 **You** : he called you a nerd  
 **Joseph** : wtf  
 **Joseph** : thats stupid  
 **Joseph** : hes an emo loser that can go suck balls for all I care  
 **You** : tell him that yourself

“You know, Gabriel, it wouldn’t be good for you if they caught you again,” Mom said from the driving seat.

Gabriel met her eye in the rearview mirror. Mom hadn’t even asked him if he had done it after they’d left the principal’s office, but she had a knack for knowing when he had done things he wasn’t supposed to do, like that time he had smashed in Josie Romano’s bedroom windows. Denying that he had lifted twenty bucks out of someone else’s bag would be a waste of energy. “I’m too careful for that. They went through my stuff today and they still didn’t find the money on me.”

“But that boy saw you,” Mom said.

“That was a fluke.”

“Maybe it was a fluke,” Mom agreed, “but it proves my point. You can’t guarantee you get caught again, no matter how careful you are.”

“I’d take my chances,” Gabriel said, just to be difficult. He didn’t particularly like stealing. It wasn’t like he needed the money; Dad gave him a bigger allowance than he needed every month and would give him more if he asked. He had done it because the bag had been sitting in the empty gym when he had gone to take a piss and had still been there when he had been walking back to the canteen. Anyone who was stupid enough to leave their belongings unattended in a public space deserved to have their money stolen.

“You still want to go to college and joint the army after high school, don’t you?” Mom said.

A new message popped up on the screen of Gabriel’s phone.

 **Joseph** : id beat his ass the next time I see him

“I don’t see your point,” Gabriel said, tapping out a reply.

 **You** : do it  
 **You** : remember, pic or it didnt happen

“The army doesn’t like to take people with a criminal record,” Mom said. “The next time you try to do something reckless, think about how it’ll come back and bite you on the ass. Chances are you won’t want to do it anymore. Does that make sense?”

Gabriel put down his phone and laid his head back against the headrest. As much as he hated to admit it, he understood what Mom was trying to say. It made more sense than lectures about respecting people property and being decent to other people. “Mom, you’re supposed to tell me stealing is wrong and I shouldn’t do it.”

“Will it work?”

“No, but it’s your duty as my mom to say that,” Gabriel muttered. “You’re coercing me into not stealing shit from people who deserve it. It’s practically blackmail without the blackmail.”

Mom looked over to him with a twinkle in her eye. “As long as it works.”

Father Mena liked to say there were several kinds of people in the world. There were the sheep, the wolves, and the sheepdogs. The wolves preyed on the sheep, and the sheepdogs protected the sheep from the wolves. Gabriel had told him he had forgotten to mention the shepherds that told the sheep dogs where to go. Father Mena had laughed patted Gabriel on the head and thanked him for reminding them the class that they were the flock of Jesus Christ.

Gabriel hadn’t bothered telling Father Mena he had meant real people like his mom.

People who knew how to appeal to him and speak his language.

“It’s not working.”

“In that case, promise me you’ll think about what I said, Gabriel. I just don’t want to see you ruin your own future before it got started.” Mom kissed him on the cheek. “Because you’re my boy and I love you.”

Mom had a lot of love for a lot of people. Gabriel couldn’t get his head around why Mom liked helping out at the community center every Saturday with the ESL classes. She didn’t get paid for it, and the only reason he could come up with was that it somehow made her feel good about herself.

But Mom loved him more than any of those kids, just because he was her son. She was in his corner every time she had been called to school because of him, and she did that for no other reason than because he was her son and she didn’t ask anything back from him.

“I love you too,” Gabriel said grudgingly.

He didn’t love her the way she loved him. He loved her because she clothed him and watered him and provided for him and cared for him and knew him better than he knew himself. He could only love her as much as a squirrel could love a tree that provided shelter and food to it.

But it didn’t mean he didn’t love her.

  


* * *

  


** Now **

Gabriel was roused from his sleep when his door slid open and his room was flooded with the white light from the hallway. He closed his eyes again after he saw Jack closing the door behind him. He didn’t budge to make space for him. Jack could have a third of the bed; it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to it. Clothes rustled as Jack stripped down, and his communicator and watch clicked when he took them off and placed them on the bedside stand.

The bed dipped under Jack’s weight as he pulled back the covers, but he didn’t lie down and went to sleep silently so Gabriel could ignore he was there. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed. “Are you awake?”

Gabriel didn’t bother answering. He had been having a dreamless sleep before he had been disturbed by Jack, and he intended to go back to where he left off. If he ignored Jack, Jack would have to take the hint and shut up and sleep or slink back to his own bed on the other side of the base.

“I can tell you ain’t asleep.”

The only sound in the room was that of his and Jack’s even breathing, but the bed creaked as Jack leaned over him. Jack’s ring and tags were hanging out of his shirt and his breaths were hot against Gabriel’s cheek when he kissed Gabriel on the mouth.

Gabriel hadn’t been expecting Jack to feel frisky tonight, but he was fine with going with the program. Gabriel leaned on his elbow and dragged Jack down to deepen the kiss. Jack tasted like the minty toothpaste that he liked to buy over the counter at the drug store. But other than that, it was like kissing his own goddamn hand. Jack let him nipped his tongue and responded with a half-hearted peck that Gabriel could have gotten from one of the stuffed shirts on the Security Council.

“We need to talk,” Jack said.

“We’re talking.” Gabriel sat up, and sucked Jack’s bottom lip into his mouth. He ran his fingers through the short bristles above Jack’s ears. Jack must have gotten himself a haircut over the weekend before he had attended the peacekeeping conference in Ethiopia. Gabriel hadn’t bothered to see him off or pick him up 

“I got a phone call from the Pittmans,” Jack said against his lips.

Gabriel dropped his hands from Jack. Jack settled back on his haunches as Gabriel sneered, “Of course you did.”

“Then you know what I’m here about,” Jack said.

“I have no goddamn clue.” Gabriel grunted and lay down in the bed again. He had watched the evening news. Pictures from the Pittman twins’ seven-year-old birthday party had featured prominently for the first quarter of the news reports before the commercial break, because a pimp had been careless and let them be sighted by a doddering English tourist that had had trouble sleeping in her motel room in Italy.

It was more than enough for the Pittman media circus to do the rounds again.

“The prostitution ring involved in the Pittman case. I looked into the database. Blackwatch know about their human trafficking operations. I looked through the records. You’ve been sitting on the intel since last year,” Jack said. “Why haven’t you done anything about them yet?”

Gabriel’s words were clipped. “I’m sitting on a lot of stuff.”

“Goddammit, Gabriel,” Jack raised his voice. “Those kids don’t deserve this. They deserve to live with their family and have a normal childhood, not be sold into sex slavery.”

“Save me your self-righteous bullshit. A pair of parents come and cry on your shoulder, and suddenly you care that kids are being used as party flavors?” Gabriel said. “News flash: This has been going on for years.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“No, but thousands of kids are traded like live cattle every year all over the world,” Gabriel said. “Where were you then?” 

Hel couldn’t see Jack’s expression in the dark. The most he could make out was the faint line of light under the door and the tight set of Jack’s shoulders, but he could hear the grit in his voice when Jack said, “Go in and get the kids out. I’ve read the intel. It ain’t tough.”

“Hate to tell you, but none of these prostitution rings are ‘tough’,” Gabriel said with a flat laugh. “They deal in young kids, not guns.”

“If it’s so easy, why haven’t you taken them out yet?” Jack said.

“Like I said. I’m sitting on a lot of stuff.”

Gabriel knew how the operation would go. He would storm the brothels with his team and secure the civilians and shoot anyone who tried to reach for a gun. The fight would be over in a minute and make him wish for the old days when he had gone toe-to-toe with omnics that hadn’t been programmed with the self-preservation to turn tail and run after taking a grenade in the face. They could take everything Gabriel threw at them and give back more. People, on the other hand, couldn’t take more than a couple of point blank buckshots to the chest before they went down for good.

Peace time was making him want to crawl out of his skin.

It was like the downtime between deployments, only this time the plane never arrived and Gabriel had been stuck waiting at the airstrip with his packed bags at his feet for what had felt like years. There weren’t enough para-military groups and terrorist organizations for him to hunt.

“But since you won’t get off my back, I’ll prep for an operation tomorrow.” Gabriel tugged the covers over his chest. “Just keep your moles out of my business and I’ll be golden.”

Jack let out a heavy sigh. The headboard groaned as he sagged against it. “It ain’t my people.”

“The records don’t lie. Someone is stealing confiscated weapons in transit to the scrap yard,” Gabriel said. “Or do you think guns grow legs and march out of the trucks of their own free will?”

“Hard to tell with the new tech that’s coming out these days.” Jack was warm and soft under the sleeve of his shirt where he was pressing against Gabriel’s shoulders. Overwatch agents might get to see Jack on the field everyday but they didn’t know how the hard edges under his skin wore off at night when he thought no one could see him. Jack didn’t like to act like it, but he ran on food and sleep and had a heart that could be made to bleed and break like the rest of them. “You have an arms dealer on your team, why don’t you ask him?”

Gabriel stifled a yawn. It was unlikely that Jack would be letting him fuck him anytime soon tonight. His eyelids were getting heavy. “Trust me, it isn’t McCree. That’ll be too easy.”

“The hell does that have to do with anything?” Jack grumbled. “Life doesn’t have to be difficult if you don’t make it difficult.”

“Mm, sounds fake. Where did you get that from? A fortune cookie?”

“I pulled it out of my damn ass,” Jack said. “Look, I don’t want it to be McCree. The kid has potential, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s the only one that has the means and the connections to find people that will take those illegal firearms off his hands.”

“You sure he’s the only one?” Gabriel said. “I’ll remind you that the guns started to go missing after you brought in that fresh batch of recruits to fill the ranks.”

“I’ve screened them,” Jack said. “Can’t say the same for your operatives.”

“My operatives are a pack of scumbags, but at least they’re scumbags that I handpicked myself,” Gabriel said. “When was the last time you turned a recruit away?”

Jack shifted his weight away from Gabriel, leaving Gabriel’s shoulder cold and bared to the stale air in the room. He didn’t have trouble pointing fingers at Blackwatch, but he always put his hands up and planted his feet apart when Gabriel turned it back on Overwatch. Predictable.

“I can’t refuse them without a reasonable cause,” Jack said gruffly. “The member states want to have their own people keep an eye on things. What do you want me to do? Kick them out because I don’t like how they look?”

“I’m past caring how you run Overwatch. It’s your team, your people.” Gabriel yawned widely, and snapped his jaw close with a click. “But one of us has fucked up, and it isn’t me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in getting this chapter posted. I thought I could finish the chapter before exams but it took longer than I expected, so I had to set it aside for a while.

** Two Decades Ago **

The sky was dark enough for stars to be visible behind wisps of clouds when Gabriel led his squad to the front door. The house was too far away from the road for the light from the streetlamps to shine on its yellow walls and flat roof. Calderon took his own team to the back of the house. Once his men moved into place, Gabriel gave the breacher the order to force open the door. The battering ram was loud and the lamp above the door rattled from the impact, but the lock broke on the second hit. Gabriel moved into the foyer with his men. A bang sounded through the house. The back door was being rammed open by the other team. Someone shouted from inside the rooms.

Gabriel led his team up the stairs as lights on the landing were switched on. A man in boxers appeared in a doorway with a submachine gun.

 _“¡Come mierda y muerte!”_ the man shouted and fired his gun at the team.

One of the bullets caught Gabriel in the chest and he grunted from the impact. His body armor stopped the bullet but it didn’t feel like it. The shot had punched the air out of him. For a second, he forgot how to breathe. It was like time had slowed down as he watched the man take a bullet to the head and keel over. On the floor below him, Calderon and his team were yelling for someone to get down on their knees. Gabriel sucked in a lungful of air through his mouth. The pain in his chest flared up sharply – he would be feeling the bruise for the rest of the week, if he were lucky – but he forced himself to get moving again. He beckoned for his squad to follow him and clear the rest of the rooms.

At the end of the raid, they killed four men, arrested seven, and caught the lieutenant of the drug cartel stuck in the second floor bathroom with his ass hanging out of the window. Calderon went to check in with command. After the weeks of planning it had taken, the raid had only lasted for less than ten minutes. Gabriel wouldn’t mind dragging it out, but Calderon had been happy to end things early and Calderon ran the show this time.

The teams were moving crates of firearms out of the rooms and into the dining room. Gabriel excused himself when the twinge in his side made it hard for him to lift his arms without grinding his teeth. His people could do the heavy lifting without needing him to hold their hands. Now that the adrenaline rush was fading, his chest throbbed with every breath he took. The collar of his uniform under his armor was wet with sweat. He needed a break.

The back of the house was deserted. The doors to the cabinets and cupboards in the kitchen were still hanging open from the search earlier. The countertops were bare. The teams had found nothing but bottled waters and cans of cat food in the pantry. The drug cartel hadn’t been staying at this safe house for long. The laundry room, on the hand, was cluttered with bed sheets and clothes piled in the hampers. The room smelled too much of the open box of lavender washing powder sitting on the washing machine. The artificial scent was amplified by the damp heat trapped in the laundry room. It overpowered the faint smell of blood that had spread from the floors of the bedrooms to the rest of the house, and was thick and cloying in Gabriel’s nose. Gabriel rubbed his chest absently and glanced into the dark room for a switch to turn on the ventilation fan.

Gabriel didn’t find a switch for a fan. The only switch was for the lights and it lit up the room and the man that was rifling through the laundry. The man could be anywhere from his early twenties to his late thirties. His hair was falling into his eyes and his coat was did up wrong. The man stiffened when Gabriel dropped his hands to his gun and clicked off the safety.

“ _Enséñame tus manos,_ ” Gabriel snapped. The rote phrase came out easier than it had used to now that he had to use it in every other raid.

But it must’ve sounded off, because the man was quick to reply in accented English, “No, wait. Listen, take this. It’s worth more than five grands. Easy.”

He held out a white brick wrapped in a plastic bag. Gabriel had seen pictures of heroin during his training. As a plant. In a barrel. In a bucket. In a bowl. In a baggie. He knew what it looked like in every stage of the production process, but this was the first time he had laid eyes on the real deal.

The man’s gaze darted to the back door behind Gabriel. The back door was closed, but the wood around the lock had splintered after Calderon’s men had breached the door. “There’s more hidden behind the house. I’ll tell you where it is if you let me go. No one has to know. You can come back for it when your friends have left.”

Gabriel had heard a lot of stories since he had been sent down here with his SF team to work in hands with the Mexican Army. The details were different, but they didn’t stray far from the common theme: Soldiers being caught smuggling drugs across the border and why it was a bad idea to try to cut themselves a piece of the proverbial pie.

But that was because they were careless. Gabriel was smart. He knew enough about the going price of heroin to know he could easily get a month’s worth of his salary if he took the brick. More than that if the man wasn’t lying about the extra stash.

No one knew this man had been here.

No one would know Gabriel had let him go.

Gabriel kicked at the man’s head. The handgun the man was pulling out of the back of his waistband clattered to the floor and went off in a blast that was too loud for the room. A bright pulse of light lit up the walls. The man dropped abruptly on all fours like a puppet that had its strings cut. He was howling and cradling what was left of his knee. The air smelled like barbecued pork and melted metal but the man wasn’t bleeding; the pulse shot must have cauterized the skin and flesh when it had penetrated his knee. A smoking hole was burned into the side of the washing machine.

With his heart in his throat and the shot ringing in his ears, Gabriel shoved the man to the ground and bent his arms behind his back. “Nice try, but I said show me your hands.”

The man whimpered incoherently. He probably didn’t hear him.

“What is happening?” Calderon said. The hall behind him was crowded with both teams, who had their guns drawn.

“We missed one.” Gabriel ground his boot into the back of the man beneath him. The man’s pained protests were muffled by the floor. “Get him some medical attention before he dies on us.”

A medic took the man from him. Half of Calderon’s people were already moving out of the laundry room to comb through the rooms again for any suspects; the rest were digging through the piles of laundry in the room. Gabriel waved off the concerns of his team and told them to return to moving the weapons they had moved.

Calderon was examining the brick of heroin that the man had dropped. “I’ve been wondering if we would turn up some of this today.”

“He said there’s more behind the house, but I’d bet he was lying to buy himself time. If the drugs exist, they’ll be in this room.” Gabriel picked up the handgun. The barrel was glowing red. Gabriel clicked on the safety and looked for the serial number. Deep, discolored scratches marked the spot where the number had been shaved off. “What I want to know is where he got his hands on anti-mecha weapons.”

“Work these parts for another year and you’ll stop being surprised. This is the second time this year that I saw a piece of military tech on the streets,” Calderon said.

Gabriel chuckled. The gun was weightier than the side arms he used, but for the damage it could do, it was surprisingly compact. The grip of the gun could fit in his palm. “I didn’t know our experimental weapons are so easy to get on the black market.”

“They aren’t. If they didn’t cost an arm and a leg, everyone and their grandmother would be pulling pulse cannons and photon grenades out of their pants,” Calderon said. “Someone would kill to get that gun you’re holding and buy a car with the money.”

“I don’t blame them,” Gabriel said. “Whoever has the biggest stick wins.”

“They certainly think so.” Calderon tossed the brick of heroin to his sergeant. “Alright, let’s look for those drugs. Maybe we can keep some schools clean for a change.”

  


* * *

  


** Now **

The building had used to house the research center of a private college. The college had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for years before liquidators had taken over. None of the intel suggested that the shady directors of the collapsed college had any connection to the shell company that was renting the building to use as its offices. Gabriel didn’t know who bought the head of an Omnic battle unit off the Russian black market. He only knew that it had been shipped out here last week along with a team of Omnica Corporation’s ex-employees.

Gabriel was perched on the third floor on the wrong side of the railings. The ledge was an inch wide and it felt narrower than that under his heavy boots. He had his arms wrapped around the railings and his back pressed flush against the peeling white paint. The railings were the only thing keeping him from dropping two stories to the linoleum hallway beneath him.

A door down the hall flung open and McCree raced out of it like a bat out of hell. McCree had lost his cowboy hat and he was struggling to operate his radio with one hand and holding his revolver with the other.

“Boss?” McCree said into his radio. He was too concentrated on his radio to look up and see Gabriel. McCree’s voice cracked on the word. “Boss?”

The transmission light on Gabriel’s radio blinked red. The radio had received and was relaying McCree’s message, but Gabriel had muted it.

McCree didn’t have long to linger in the hall. Men came out of the room that McCree had vacated. They were dressed in jackets and jeans. They raised their assault rifles when they saw McCree. McCree chanted a litany of “shit shit shit” under his breath and ran and disappeared around the corner at the end of the hallway. The men briskly shouted at each other in French, and chased after McCree. Gabriel counted them as they raced past under his perch.

Seven guards. Not hard to take down when their guards were down.

A gun went off at the end of the hallway. The guards cursed and opened fire. The rapid rat-tat-tat-tat sounded like too many firecrackers going off at the same time. A guard shouted over the noise.

“I don’t speak frog,” McCree said. That mouth and that attitude were the few things that he had going for him. Gabriel would have kicked him to the curb if he didn’t still need him.

Gabriel dropped down from the ledge. His landing was noisier than he liked, but the gunfire didn’t cease. The shots had covered the sounds he had made. Most of the shots were fired by the guards; McCree had only fired back with his revolver a couple of times. Gabriel cocked his shotguns.

“You’re out-numbered. Come out and we’ll spare you,” a guard said.

“‘Preciate the offer,” McCree said, “but I ain’t born yesterday. I’ll be turned into Swiss cheese soon as I come out from behind this cover.”

At the end of the hallway was a lounge. The small space connected the research wing to the south wing that had used to house the laboratories of the research center. The guards were huddled behind a couch and shooting at a barricade that was made up of a loveseat and an overturned desk. The furniture was peppered with bullet holes as the guards fired at the barricade.

Gabriel shoved the barrels of his shotguns against the two guards closest to him and fired into their backs. The buck shots shot through their spines and shredded their organs. No medical miracle would save them; they were as good as dead. Gabriel did the same to two more guards, before a guard tried to shoot him, and he knocked the barrel of the assault rifle away from him.

“Wait for your turn. There’s enough for everyone,” Gabriel said.

He shot off the guard’s jaw and emptied his guns into the last two guards. They didn’t have much of their heads left after he was done with them.

“Room is clear. Stop sniveling and get out from behind there,” Gabriel said.

McCree peered over the top of the loveseat. The cover was torn by bullet holes. McCree widened his eyes under his matted mop of hair. “Fuck me sideways. You come back.”

“I never left. It was a test and you failed it.” Gabriel stripped the assault rifles off of the dead guards. He threw two of the guns to McCree, and McCree caught them with a scowl.

“I had it under control,” McCree said.

“No, you didn’t. It wouldn’t have taken them another minute to realize you weren’t shooting back because you ran out of ammo. Don’t give me lip about having it under control. You would’ve been dead if it weren’t for me.” Gabriel reloaded his shotguns. He headed past the barricade that McCree had been using as cover and towards the south wing of the building. McCree’s spurs jangled behind him. His gait was brisk and Gabriel hadn’t heard the last of it, but Gabriel had shut him down enough times over the last month that he was learning not to talk back as much he used to. Gabriel unmuted his radio. “East Wing, come in.”

“This is East Wing. We’ve located the servers.” The radio crackled. “Is everything alright?”

“Expect enemy reinforcements to arrive soon. The night shift ran into us,” Gabriel said.

“No wonder McCree was crying over the radio like a kid.”

“I’ll have you know these eyes are bone-dry,” McCree said.

“Speak of the devil. That was some mess you got yourself in. I haven’t heard that much gunfire in a while.” The voice on the other end of the radio laughed. “Did you piss yourself, McCree?”

“Nah, I’m saving that for your mama,” McCree said.

Gabriel interrupted them. “Why? You need her to hold it and do the aiming for you? Since you can’t shoot for shit.”

“I can aim just fine, but no one told me this would be a solo mission. You can’t pin that clusterfuck on me,” McCree said.

Gabriel drew up short and growled, “Are you trying for an insubordination charge?”

“I’m just telling it as it is.” McCree crossed his arm. “Sir.”

The snickering on the radio had died down. Someone – probably Garland, by the sound of it   
– cleared their throat. “Sir.”

“Retrieve the data and meet us at the extraction point. I don’t want to hear another word unless someone is dead,” Gabriel said.

“Roger that. Over”

“Out.” Gabriel clicked off the radio. McCree had his hackles raised like a stray mutt; he was easy to taunt and quick to bite. Gabriel didn’t have to try hard to keep his tone cold and even. It unnerved people more than when he raised his voice. He knew it unnerved McCree. “I didn’t waste my time training you so that you only take down less than half of a security team before you run out of ammo.”

“I ain’t no miracle worker. I was outnumbered eleven to one,” McCree said. “I killed four of them.”

“Not good enough. I wasn’t asking for the goddamn sky. You wasted ammo because you took shots that you couldn’t hit,” Gabriel said.

“It’s hard to line up a shot when there ain’t no one to give me cover,” McCree retorted. “I can’t hit crap if I have to worry about dodging bullets.”

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I like to keep my brains inside my head, thank you.”

“The mistake you make is thinking you have a team to fall back on. You don’t. When the chips are down, the only person you can rely on in the field is yourself. Locate your targets.” Gabriel caught McCree by his elbow and yanked him to his side. “Get close enough to see the white of their eyes.”

“Not if they see it coming.” McCree tried to free his arm. Gabriel pressed his fingers into the pressure points on McCree’s arm.

“You don’t let them see you coming.”

To his credit, McCree gritted his teeth against the pain. He pulled back his free hand and threw a punch at Gabriel’s face. Gabriel blocked the punch with his elbow. He pulled his shotgun out from behind his back and slammed his gun hard on McCree’s shoulder. McCree staggered and his free arm went limp. He cringed from Gabriel but he didn’t go far; his elbow was still being firmly grabbed by Gabriel. “Jesus Christ.”

Gabriel pressed the barrel of his shotgun under McCree’s chin. “Gun to the head. They’re dead men.”

“Alright, I get it.” McCree swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed against the shotgun. Their scuffle hadn’t been much of a workout. It didn’t warrant the pretty flush under McCree’s tan, and McCree had always been transparent. A kid from a broken home didn’t need much to get hooked. Threw him a few scraps and he followed like a lovesick pup begging for a rub behind the ears. It had made him an easy mark for recruitment then, and it made him an easy mark now.

Gabriel holstered his gun and let McCree go. “The most important lesson you’ll learn from me: Nothing survived point blank shots; not even omnics.”

“Easier said than done,” McCree muttered, rubbing his arm where Gabriel had grabbed him. “A fella is liable to be shot in the kisser first. I ain’t sure I like the odds.”

“Kill them before they kill you.” Gabriel headed down the hall. The intel had placed the parcel in the lab at the end of the south wing. “You’re a quick draw, aren’t you?”

“The quickest draw on this side of town.” McCree patted his holstered revolver. “Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“That’s what I want to hear,” Gabriel said.

The door to the lab was locked with a keypad and a fingerprint scanner. Gabriel pried open the panel on the keypad. He plugged in his reader and let the program hacked open the lock. McCree hovered behind Gabriel when the door slid open. Wires ran the length of the lab. Computers were connected to the bulky pieces of machinery that took up most of the room. In the corner, the omnic head was sitting on a workbench and hooked up to the machines.

“Do you have the bugs with you?” Gabriel said.

“I got them right here.”

“You know the drill,” Gabriel said.

McCree climbed onto a chair to bug the air vents, while Gabriel carefully disconnected the omnic head from the wires. The lights behind the omnic’s eyes were turned off and there was no telltale drone of a running processor inside the metal head, but the last thing Gabriel needed was to trigger a start-up sequence and have an armed omnic part on his hands. Half of the wires were bolts into the head. Gabriel had to cut the wires with his laser cutter. It didn’t take long for him to stop noticing the smell of melted plastic.

“I planted the bugs,” McCree said. “What now?”

“Next, I break the nice, expensive machines in this lab. Can’t have the scientists making their projects from scratch again after we’re done here,” Gabriel said. The machines costed millions. It would make a dent in the pocket of whoever that was funding this operation. “There’s a fire axe down the hall. Get it for me.”

“Can’t you just shoot them?” McCree said.

“This job can be done with brute force. I’m saving my bullets,” Gabriel said. “Or do you want to run out of ammo again if you run into reinforcements on the way out?”

“Alright, I get it. Ain’t no need to get your back up,” McCree said.

“Move it. I want that axe now.”

Gabriel disconnected the last of the wirings, and transferred the omnic head into the metal crate that he had brought with him. The crate was one of Lindholm’s inventions, designed to jam any signals that might be transmitted by omnic body parts. Gabriel switched on the jammers that lined the inside of the lid. He waited for the lights to change from orange to green before he closed the lid and engaged the lock.

He stuffed the crate into his bag and checked the time. Once he was done here, the east wing should have finished collecting the data that was stored in the servers. They should have a little time left over to meet up at the extraction point before the security reinforcements arrived.

“Got you your axe.” McCree handed it over, but the fire axe wasn’t the only thing he had retrieved. He was wearing his cowboy hat again.

“It took you long enough,” Gabriel said.

“The axe was kept in a corner. I walked past it twice before I saw it.”

Gabriel took the axe from him. “Don’t bullshit me. You doubled back for your hat.”

“Nah, I happened to pick up my hat on the way. I had to look everywhere to find that axe,” McCree said.

Gabriel swung the axe at a machine that had wires running through glass tubes behind a transparent case. The top of the machine scraped the ceiling. The blade of the axe was dull, but Gabriel’s enhanced strength made up for it. The hard plastic shell caved under the axe.

“And there’s this other funny thing I found,” McCree said. He held up an Overwatch-issued communicator. The communicator was smaller than a dollar coin. The Overwatch insignia decorated the back of it. Gabriel didn’t have to see it to know it didn’t work because of water damage; he had dropped it behind the potted fern in the lobby when McCree had been leading the guards on a merry chase through the backrooms.

Gabriel tightened his grip over the handle of the axe reflexively, but he forced himself to relax. This wasn’t a problem that could be solved by disposing of McCree, especially when he hadn’t gotten what he needed from McCree yet. Then again, McCree had worked exclusively for Blackwatch. McCree had no more love for Overwatch than Gabriel did. Gabriel reached into the machine and ripped out its parts. “It’s their dirty work we’re doing. Let them take the credit for it.”

McCree flipped the communicator into the air and caught it. “I ain’t arguing. I’m just saying it’s mighty careless of them to lose their equipment here.”

The machines were cracked open and dismembered by the time the team radioed Gabriel to report that the surveillance drones had spotted a convoy of vans coming their way. They had to leave. Gabriel did the final checks and McCree radioed east wing. When they passed through the lobby to meet up with the team at the extraction point, McCree tossed the Overwatch-issued communicator into the room. The communicator landed behind the potted fern, not far from where Gabriel had planted it before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translation:**  
>  ¡Come mierda y muerte! – Eat shit and die!  
> Enséñame tus manos. – Show me your hands.


	4. Chapter 4

** More Than a Decade Ago **

The path that cut through the hill was wide enough for a truck to drive through. The trees that lined the path were sparse and offered little shade. The sun was casting short shadows on the dirt and burning a hole into the top of Gabriel’s helmet. It wasn’t like the tropical heat that Gabriel had gotten used to during his deployments down south. When Gabriel lifted his head, his vision grew too bright and he had to train his eyes on the ground and swallow his nausea.

No soldier that had been stationed at this base liked this hill. The terrain was rough and the inclines were so severe that some of them had to be scaled with ropes. As if doing a time-trial run wasn’t bad enough on this hill, an order had come down that noon that everyone in the enhancement program had to do it in full gear.

Gabriel was feeling every weight in his backpack. The harness makes it impossible for him to hunch his shoulders. His fatigues were soaked under his arms and down his back. His helmet was stifling and his boots were heavy. It was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. His arms were stiff where they were holding his rifle to his chest. The rifle sling dug into the side of his neck. His chest pulled painfully with each breath he took. His panting was harsh in his ears and he was getting sick of hearing himself breathe.

He had to keep his mind on the finishing line. He was so far ahead of the other soldiers that he couldn’t hear them or the medical team that was bringing up the rear anymore. He had to keep running and ignore how every inch of his body was aching. If he stopped and rested, he would never want to get up again.

The path was sloping downwards and Gabriel could see the tent where the captain was waiting with a squad. Behind the tent was the patch of trees where the run had started and where the fork that led back to the base stretched.

“Good job, Reyes. First one to arrive and with fifteen minutes to spare,” the captain said, marking the time on a clipboard.

“Just glad to get it done and over with,” Gabriel said in between gasps of air.

“I’d bet. It’s a hell of a heat wave we’re having,” the captain said. “Keep walking and cool off. You don’t want to sit down yet.”

Gabriel didn’t need to be told. He made a wobbling beeline for the trees where they offered some cover from the sun. His stomach roiled and he threw up in a bush. His chicken and rice lunch came up his throat. It took a few heaves before he got everything out.

His jaw ached and his throat burned. It hurt but it was a good pain. He felt more awake than he had had in months when he had been commanding reconnaissance patrols from a van.

“Here comes another one,” the captain said.

Gabriel raised his eyes to see Jack jogging down the slope in a slow trot. Gabriel knew him by sight. Jack Morrison was the kind of good-looking that casting directors would spare a glance for back in Los Angeles. He had a set of strong brows, a square jaw, and a mouth that butter wouldn’t melt in. But right now, as he dropped his backpack onto the ground, he looked wrecked. The sun and the physical exertion had turned his neck and what could be seen of his face lobster red under his helmet.

“Alright, keep walking, Morrison. Keep walking,” the captain said.

Jack nodded but was breathing too heavily to say anything back. He clutched at his sides and staggered towards Gabriel for the shade under the trees too. Jack had led a rifle squad before joining the enhancement program on the recommendation of his CEO. He hadn’t climbed up the ranks far, but he had earned a Purple Heart and a commendation for acts of extraordinary heroism. Gabriel had lost count of how many times he had heard the word ‘heroism’ being spoken in the same breath as Jack’s name.

“Walk it off. You’ll feel less like dog shit,” Gabriel said, not moving away from his tree. His interest in Jack extended little past how best to utilize Jack’s skills on the field and whether that mouth would be worth the risk of shitting where he ate, but no man was an island in the military. Gabriel didn’t make it where he was by playing lone wolf. His old team had loved him because he had trained with them and eaten with them and pretended that he had cared about the petty things that had kept them up at night. Loyalty didn’t have to be bought with money; it could be bought with a round of drinks at a dive bar that had liked doing business with soldiers on leave.

“I’ll feel better when I’m dead.” Jack wheezed painfully and unbuckled the helmet strap under his chin.

“Careful what you wish for,” Gabriel said.

“I don’t die easy,” Jack said with the same conviction that missionaries had when they talked about the Bible. He leaned his head back against a tree, which knocked his helmet over his eyes, but he was too busy trying to breathe to right his gear.

“You better be knocking on wood,” Gabriel said. “Someone might take you up on that challenge.”

Jack snorted. “I’ve grown out of believing in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy a while ago.”

“You’d be surprised at the kind of things keep soldiers moving when they’re holding in their guts on the field,” Gabriel said.

A slight movement told him that Jack was glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Jack might be cocky but he didn’t have the ranks or the experience to back it up. Jack got his medals from running at bullets. He didn’t get them from learning the game and playing the game and living the game.

“I don’t peg you for the superstitious type,” Jack said.

“I’m not aware I’m any type,” Gabriel said. The taste of bile lingering at the back of his throat reminded him that he was in no shape to chew out anyone, but he put enough force behind his words to remind Jack that was he was talking to an officer.

Jack was either too stupid or too stubborn to backpedal, or both. The two tended to go hand-in-hand. “You seem too practical to believe in that kind of stuff.”

“Know a lot about me, do you?” Gabriel said.

“Only by reputation. Rumor has it that you were responsible for that crackdown in El Salvador last year,” Jack said.

“I won’t confirm or deny that. Let’s just say someone has to get things done,” Gabriel said.

“I can respect that,” Jack said.

“I didn’t ask for your approval. That’s the point of having a reputation: It saves me time earning respect from junior enlisted that don’t know jack squat about me.” Gabriel unscrewed his water canteen and took a tentative sip. When the water didn’t come back up again, Gabriel drank until he had to breathe. He wiped water off his chin. “I’m not the only one here with a reputation. I’ve heard about you too.”

“Good things, I hope,” Jack said.

“Pretty good,” Gabriel said. “Though they forgot to mention you’re a cocky son of a bitch.”

Jack smiled widely like he had been given a medal and a pat on the back instead of the insult that Gabriel had intended his words to be. He barely looked old enough to drink, but he had the premature wrinkles that were shared by people that spent too much time under the sun. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. It was a change from his usual stony expressions. He rarely smiled beyond a quirk of his lips, if he smiled at all. “I enlisted to serve the country. I ain’t here to prove myself. If I step on someone’s toes, that’s on them; they should’ve gotten out of the way.”

“You had some nerves calling me practical.” Gabriel laughed. There was steel under Jack’s pretty face that Gabriel hadn’t thought to search for. “How many people have you sacrificed for your crusade?”

“No one. The worst anyone has gotten from me is a bruised pride. I draw the line at ordering people to their deaths. The only life I put on the line is my own,” Jack said, “because someone has to get things done.”

Catching his own words that Jack had tossed back at him, Gabriel laughed long and loud. “We’ll see how long you last on the field with that attitude.”

“It’s been a few years, and I’m still standing,” Jack said.

“We’ll see,” Gabriel repeated. Idealists broke easily once guns started shooting, which was why Gabriel didn’t bother with them, but Jack had a mean streak that might hold up against bullets. It wasn’t every day that Gabriel missed his mark, and Gabriel found himself looking over Jack with new eyes. “After all, the good die young.”

“Well, I’m just a soldier,” Jack said. He squinted as he looked at the sky. “I save lives, fight battles, and pay my dues. I don’t claim to be on the side of the angels.”

  


* * *

  


** Now **

Gabriel’s ragged breathing and the rattling of the treadmill were the only sounds in the gym. He had been having the room to himself since he had come down to the gym and his recruits had retired for an early night. His recruits didn’t like to be around when he was looking for a distraction. He made them fight him so he could mop the floor with them, and it never did much to improve his mood.

“Gym is closing for the night. Equipment will be shutting off in five minutes,” the treadmill said.

Gabriel got in an extra mile before the treadmill whirred to a stop.

The crippling pain in his legs had worn off by the time he finished his shower. It never lasted. It had been a long time since he had suffered any muscle aches for long since his time with the enhancement program. He couldn’t get drunk either, but that didn’t stop him from requisitioning crates of hard liquor to keep his cabinet stocked for the nights when he wanted to get buzzed.

Dismantling criminal gangs and terrorist cells didn’t give him the satisfaction that it had used to. There were always some other gangs eager to get off the bench and fill the power vacuum. The other day, he had zoned out in the middle of a report about the backroom deals in the White House. So he had pulled up the Overwatch database, gone over the mission logs, and mapped out the Overwatch troop movements in the U.N. member states. It had only taken up half of his afternoon before he had reached where he had left off last time.

He was going out of his own mind from how slow and stifling his work had become

“Goodnight,” the gym door said, and locked itself behind him.

The halls were silent as Gabriel made his way back towards the sleeping quarters allocated to Blackwatch. The lights flickered on when the motion sensors detected his presence. The base hadn’t been using any human guards to patrol the halls since the A.I. security system had been installed.

Despite the constant snow that the maintenance team had been removing from the roads that ran through the base, the central heating system kept the halls warm. The weather reports had warned that Zürich would be expecting heavy snowfall next week. It was a good thing he would be flying out to Uttar Pradesh with his team over the weekend to deal with the omnic situation at the India-Nepal border. His team could bitch about the fog instead of the snow when they got there.

“Born down in a dead man’s town.  
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.”

Gabriel paused in the hallway. The guitar chord was coming from one of the briefing rooms. It didn’t sound like it was being played from a radio.

He pushed open the door. McCree was sitting in a swivel chair and playing a guitar with better posture than Gabriel had seen him driving a car with. The wooden body of the guitar was worn around the edges and McCree had draped his arm over it lazily. A handful of candles were burning in a large candle holder on the conference table. Judging from the puddles of wax, McCree had been sitting at his little one-man campfire for a while.

“Born in the U.S.A.,” McCree sang. “I was born in the U.S.A.”

McCree dipped his head towards the empty chairs that lined the conference table as he repeated the beginning of a chord on his guitar, and Gabriel realized it was an invitation. Once Gabriel had sat down in the chair next to McCree, McCree started singing again, and then Gabriel understood why McCree had waited for him.

“Got in a little hometown jam.” McCree sang. “So they put a rifle in my hand.”

Gabriel lounged in his chair and laughed. “You little shit.”

“Sent me off to a foreign land.” McCree chuckled, turning his attention back to his guitar. “To go and kill the yellow man.”

McCree sang the lyrics slow and he sang them clear, stretching them out with his Southern drawl. This time, as McCree meandered into the chorus, Gabriel joined in too.

“Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A.  
Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.”

Despite all the times Gabriel had heard this song from the radio and the television and the rallies and the streets, he had never learnt the song beyond its chorus. He could only listen as McCree crooned about unemployment and imprisonment and a dead buddy.

“They’re still there,” McCree sang, “he’s all gone.”

McCree had a decent voice, but Gabriel had heard better. The song wasn’t what was Gabriel was staying for either; Gabriel could care less about the soldiers of a war that had happened nearly a century ago. He doubted McCree could find Vietnam on a map, but McCree was singing about someplace else when he was singing about Saigon. McCree was singing his soul out and laying it bare for all to see and Gabriel couldn’t look away.

“I’m ten years burning down the road. Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go.” McCree strummed his guitar.

“Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.  
Born in the U.S.A., I’m a long gone daddy in the U.S.A.”

Gabriel sang along, and McCree had his gaze fixed on Gabriel from under the brim of his cowboy hat and the light from the candles reflected in his eyes. Gabriel wasn’t deaf or blind. He knew what McCree thought of him. It had been useful when he had recruited McCree.

“Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.  
Born in the U.S.A., I’m a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.”

So Gabriel leaned in close, and kissed him hard. The guitar pressed into Gabriel’s chest. McCree went rigid, his hands going stock still over the strings of his guitar, before he kissed Gabriel back with wide, open kisses.

Gabriel pressed hungry kisses on McCree’s mouth. McCree’s stubble scratched Gabriel’s chin. It was nothing like kissing Jack. Jack shaved before breakfast and after lunch every day. Gabriel put his hand behind McCree’s neck and tugged him closer.

McCree reached up with his hand to hold his shoulder, groaned against his mouth, and it was the only warning Gabriel got when McCree bit down on his lip.

Gabriel swore and shoved McCree away. He touched his own mouth and his hand came away red.

McCree was panting like he had run a lap around the base. His lips were swollen and wet with spit and Gabriel’s blood

Gabriel glared at him. The bite wouldn’t scar but it stung and he had to blink water out of his eyes. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“Much as I’m enjoying this, I don’t mess around with married men,” McCree said. “You’re a special kind of heartless, ain’t ya?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Gabriel said sharply.

“I’ve seen the ring you wear around your neck,” McCree said. “I could be mistaken, but it didn’t look like a mood ring to me.”

“You’re right. Maybe it’s a goddamn purity ring,” Gabriel retorted. “It’s none of your business even if I wear a class ring on a chain. Been busy peeking in the showers?”

“I ain’t the only one who has noticed,” McCree said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “It ain’t no secret that you’re doing Commander Morrison on the side either. Thing is, I can’t figure out if he is wearing the other ring in the pair, or if it’s someone else back home.”

“I don’t care about Jack,” Gabriel said.

“I don’t doubt that, but I ain’t stupid enough to think you give a damn about me,” McCree said.

“I’d believe that if you didn’t look at me like I hang the moon,” Gabriel said.

McCree laughed. It was a short, reedy noise. “I don’t do that.”

“Yes, you do, because you’ve never been wanted by anyone like I want you. Your family didn’t want you. The Deadlock Gang didn’t ask you to join them. You had to beg them to take you in,” Gabriel said, “It’s funny you think the Deadlock Gang want you back, from the way you’re still keeping in touch with them.”

McCree clammed up. It made Gabriel smirk to see how easy McCree lost his slouch. “I haven’t talked to them in months.”

“I know your tells, McCree. I know everything that happens under this roof,” Gabriel said.

“Or you know nothing it all and you’re trying to smoke me out. Either way, I ain’t talking about my gang. That was the deal you made and I’m sticking to it.” McCree stood up. “Anyhow, it’s past my bedtime. I’ll be going.”

McCree packed his guitar in a case that was lined with newspapers and a size too big for the guitar. He handled it with more care than he had shown the pulse weapons that had been issued to him by Blackwatch. It was like watching Ana hold her kid. Leaning over the table, Gabriel put out the candles for McCree.

“You know, this idea isn’t half-bad. A campfire may be what we need for some team bonding time. We could invite the Overwatch squads and you could sing that song for Jack,” Gabriel said.

McCree glanced at him. “Why would you want me to do that?”

“Because it would be funny to watch it fly over his head,” Gabriel said. “What’s it to you?”

“It’s nothing to me,” McCree said smoothly, flicking the clasp on his guitar case close. “ _Lo pasé muy bien._ ”

“Don’t switch language when I’m talking to you,” Gabriel snapped. It came out sharper than he had wanted to let on, because McCree pushed all his worst buttons in all the wrong order. His lip was still stinging where McCree had bit him. “And fuck off if you don’t plan to follow up on what you did.”

“Goodnight to you too,” McCree said.

McCree walked out of the door with his candles and guitar. Gabriel was left sitting in the briefing room, throbbing and unsatisfied, the exact same way he had been before he had happened on McCree and his little campfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translation:**  
>  Lo pasé muy bien. – I had a great time.


	5. Chapter 5

** A Decade Ago **

1745 hours.

Jack had a temporary office in the administrative building. The administrative staff had moved their filing cabinets out of a corner room so Jack could set up a desk and a direct phone line to the Secretary-General in the room and use it as his office until the construction work on the headquarter building was completed. Gabriel had been in the room. It was the size of a walk-in closet and the carpet smelled like the chipped yellow paint on the walls, and it was everything that Gabriel had worked for his entire life.

At 1750 hours, the door opened and Jack came out of the office like clockwork. It was Thursday and it would take him ten minutes to walk to the bar down the street from the base to grab a cheap drink and a Thursday night ribs special before the happy hour crowd arrived. Jack was nothing if not predictable.

Gabriel waited in a corner facing away from the office as Jack keyed in the code to lock his door. The door beeped twice and armed its alarm. Jack headed left and away from where Gabriel was lurking. Once Jack was far away enough that his footsteps were muted, Gabriel stepped out from the corner and followed him.

The administrative staff had clocked out and there was no one else in the building except for Jack and the janitor that Gabriel had passed by in the breakroom. Jack was heading for the stairwell that led down to the ground level offices. He was dressed in the black t-shirt and fatigue pants ensemble that he wore under his body armor these days.

Gabriel caught up to Jack with swift, wide strides, and raised his fist.

Jack caught his punch before it even glanced the back of Jack’s shirt. Jack was wearing a hard look of his own to match Gabriel’s, “I heard you coming from a mile away. Your boots are too damn heavy.”

It would be a waste of breath to lie and say that this wasn’t an ambush. Gabriel was in too deep and had waited too long to back out, so he kept his mouth shut and threw a left hook at Jack’s face. Gabriel hit Jack on the jaw and Jack’s teeth clacked, but Gabriel had left his own face unguarded. Jack’s hand glinted, and Gabriel realized too late that Jack was wearing brass knuckles.

The punch snapped Gabriel’s head to the side and made him stumble. His cheek felt like it was on fire. Probably a fracture. The punch could dent a brick wall and knock out a man. Gabriel returned the favor. He didn’t know if his fist broke something in Jack’s face, because Jack punched him in the face again, and Gabriel tasted blood in his mouth where the inside of his cheek was cut open by his own teeth.

This time, Jack didn’t let up. Jack caught him on the temple with the force of a truck. Gabriel reeled back and fumbled his step. Gabriel couldn’t see straight. The floor was spinning. He put his arms up to block the next blow, but Jack tackled him. The carpet didn’t cushion the fall and Gabriel cracked his head on the floor.

“Stay down.” Jack was crouching in front of him. Jack wiped at the trail of blood leaking out of his own nose. The blood smeared the back of his hand and stained his front teeth. Jack lifted his fist. Sparks jumped between the two electrodes on his brass knuckles. “You don’t want to know what this taser tastes like. It can put down a horse.”

Gabriel stayed down. He spat out the blood pooling in his mouth. His spit came out pink. “Nice rings you’re wearing. Do you wear them to bed too?”

“Only because you’ve been jonesing for a fight since my promotion. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Jack said.

“Always the Boy Scout: Be prepared,” Gabriel sneered.

“I don’t argue with results.” Jack was watching Gabriel with a fist out and his brass knuckles sparking, as if Jack was the one that had just had his face beaten in. “It’s been days; I was hoping you’d let this go for once. What tipped you over the edge?”

“What do you think?”

Jack didn’t flinch at the loaded hostility in those few words. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look anything. “The committee has gotten around to telling you about your new post.”

“They told me this afternoon. I’ve been relieved of command,” Gabriel seethed. His face was throbbing where Jack had landed his punches. He couldn’t tell if Jack had broken skin, but his face was already swelling. “That job should’ve been mine. I want it back.”

“Not happening,” Jack growled. “The team voted for me to take over command.”

“No one told me there would be a popularity contest. This is the thanks I get for keeping those ingrates alive in the Crisis?” Gabriel hissed. “I’ll show them gratitude.”

Jack lowered his voice. The edge of his brass knuckles dug into the skin of his clenched fingers. “You don’t touch my people. They’re under my command. I don’t tolerate threats made against my troop.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“I’m your commanding officer,” Jack said. “If you can’t obey a direct order, I’ll have you discharged for insubordination.”

Gabriel’s laughter rang out razor-sharp. Jack didn’t join him. Gabriel laughed long enough for the punchline to go around a city block and double back for him but it never delivered. When Gabriel didn’t feel like laughing anymore, a grin stretched his mouth and showed his teeth. “You can’t kick me out. I found Overwatch.”

“We found Overwatch,” Jack said. “The Crisis might be over but the war ain’t done yet. I can’t have you undermining my commands. The world needs Overwatch.”

“The world can go to hell,” Gabriel said. The Crisis had killed tens of millions and forced more out of their homes. It had left power vacuums that had been filled by warlords and criminals that had been running the streets. Whoever had had the bigger and badder omnic weapons would reach the top of the heap. There had been power shuffles every time Gabriel had looked away from one corner of the world to another. Nations were cracking down on looted omnic equipment and reestablishing order, and people were already celebrating with parades in towns and cities. “I trusted you with commands, and then you stabbed me in the back.” 

“I didn’t betray you. I kept the team together during the Crisis,” Jack said tersely. “You had your turn. Now they want me to lead them.”

“Of course they like you. It’s easy to be adored when you don’t have to choose between the lives of thousands and the lives of millions,” Gabriel hissed. “I made the difficult decisions and you cashed in on them. Anyone can claim to be a hero in peacetime. You’re nothing special.”

“Better me than a stranger to pick up your slack,” Jack bit back.

“A stranger would hurt less,” Gabriel said. “Trusting you is the worst mistake I’ve made.”

It touched a raw nerve. Jack didn’t have a quick comeback. His expression was wooden, like he had been slapped and he couldn’t shake it off. He looked like he might walk off without a comment and stewing in the guilt trip that Gabriel had sent him on.

“Do you want a divorce?” Jack said.

“What?” Gabriel said. Years of service kept his voice steady from the bombshell he had been dropped. His stomach was hollowed out, but he didn’t know what he was feeling. Whatever it was gripped his throat like a vice and made his chest feel too tight for him to inhale.

“No point in fighting a losing battle.” Jack sighed. He powered off the taser on his brass knuckles and the electrical whine died down. “If you serve the papers, I’ll sign them. We were stupid to think this would last when we ain’t supposed to live to see the end of the Crisis.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gabriel said, though he couldn’t remember making the sounds. He felt like he had been submerged in a barrel of ice water. He was numb and miles away from his body. “I’ve read my vows before I said them. I don’t remember the Crisis being part of the best-by date.”

“You don’t want a divorce?” Jack said. He wasn’t relieved at the news. His shoulders were drawn up and lines etched deep between his brows.

“It never crosses my mind, but it seems to me you want one.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s not a no,” Gabriel said coldly. He was more familiar with the emotion that he was feeling now than the ones minutes ago. Anger was a useful weapon and he knew how not to cut himself on it.

Jack jerked his head in what could have been an aborted shake. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

They stayed on the floor like that: Gabriel glowering with a face that was starting to swell from the fractures that Jack had dealt, and Jack looking down at his own bruised knuckles like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Even now, Jack was waiting for Gabriel to initiate the difficult moves. Jack Jack couldn’t stand being a bad guy. He liked it where he was: On a pedestal with rows of medals pinned to his uniform. He didn’t destroy marriages, and he certainly wouldn’t destroy his own.

“You’ll have to use your big boy words if you want a divorce,” Gabriel said. He climbed to his feet. “Just know that I won’t make it easy for you.”

Jack didn’t follow Gabriel. His head hung low and his hair was sticking up at the top where he had run his fingers through it. Gabriel picked up a biotic field from the infirmary. The attending medical officers were too cowed to question him about his injuries after he tore a door off its hinges.

  


* * *

  


** Now **

The park had been getting cold after the sun had gone down and the fireworks had been set off. Agents that weren’t helping themselves to the last batch of food at the grill had gravitated towards the bonfire. They had moved their folded chairs to the bonfire that McCree had built. The fire was burning in a shallow pit in the dirt. An uneven circle of rocks lined the outside of the fire pit.

Reinhardt was snoring at one of the picnic tables that he had volunteered to bring to the party. Torbjörn was pouring himself a beer at the other end of the table. His flesh hand shook and he spilled the beer left in the pitcher. Reinhardt and Torbjörn were both past their prime, but they still clung to their post and pretending that they were relevant in a war that had no place for them.

“Born down in a dead man’s town.  
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.  
End up like a dog that's been beat too much  
Till you spend half your life just covering up.”

McCree was singing. He had swapped his standard-issued jacket for a red poncho. The piece of cloth was fraying at the edges. Angela stood out in the crowd by the bonfire, with her hair glowing like gold in the flickering light. Ana was holding a bottle of apple cider she had been sipping the whole night, and keeping an eye on Fareeha, who was sitting with a squad of Overwatch agents that Gabriel didn’t recognize. Jack had been busy with recruitment.

Jack was standing in the shadows just beyond the reach of the glow from the bonfire. He had taken off his blue uniform coat when he had been helping with the food at the electric grill and he hadn’t put it back on again. Like Gabriel, he was dressed down to his thin uniform shirt and pants. During the Crisis, they had marched through a Russian mountain range in their fatigues and had walked away with nothing more serious than the beginning of frostbite on the tips of their noses and ears.

The chilly city night couldn’t affect him, but the corners of his mouth were twisted down. His frown hadn’t left his face since McCree had started on the song. Good. Gabriel wasn’t here to watch him enjoy himself. It was hilarious to know that Jack couldn’t crack a single smile through the entire song. Some things just cut too close to home.

“What’s so funny?” Jack said, catching sight of Gabriel’s grin.

“You’re too uptight,” Gabriel said. “Loosen up, or the recruits will think you don’t like them.”

“I’m their commanding officer. They know I ain’t here to pet their heads and be their pal. Best I can do is to not get them killed,” Jack said, turning his eyes back to McCree. “I ran into your protégé in the hangar bay when I came back from the Stockholm operation. He’s a smooth talker. A bit of a punk. I can see why you like him.”

“He’s ex-Deadlock Gang and a compulsive liar, but he’s useful.” Gabriel managed to pass it off as nonchalant. “What did he say?”

“Mostly you. He said you’re a terror to work for,” Jack said.

“You should know.”

“That was what I told him,” Jack said.

A round of applause erupted from the around the fire. McCree had taken off his hat and was bowing to his audience. He was soaking up the attention like sponge.

Ana clapped. Her voice boomed over the ruckus. “I wouldn’t have guessed you can play the guitar so well.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am. It ain’t every day I get to play for an appreciative audience,” McCree said.

“It’s not half bad.” Torbjörn raised his glass. “Play us another one.”

“I don’t get paid near enough to provide more live music for the party. You’ll have to enjoy the rest of the night without me, I’m afraid,” McCree said.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you,” Torbjörn said.

McCree yelled his answer again.

Some of the agents were heading in for the night. Gabriel nodded goodnight to the agents that he knew by sight. Overwatch was growing too big too quickly. It was held together by spit and gum. It wouldn’t take more than a few pokes in its sides to break it apart.

Jack was watching the agents as they headed back for the base. He was sizing them up as if they would sprout horns and grow wings if he looked hard enough. A truckload of confiscated weapons had gone missing yesterday. The guards at the scrap yard had reported that Jack had overseen the destruction of the weapons personally. Jack hadn’t raised the alarm, but it had to be weighing on his mind.

“Mr. McCree, please,” Fareeha said.

“Surely one couldn’t hurt,” Angela said.

“Much as I hate to say no to you lovely ladies, a man gotta hold fast to his principles,” McCree said.

“Just one more before I have to go to bed,” Fareeha wheedled.

“What do you have to go to bed for? It’s early hours yet,” McCree said.

“It’s a school night.” Ana finished her bottle of cider. “I’ll be turning in as well if we’re wrapping up the party.”

“I haven’t told the Secretary-General,” Jack said to Gabriel, as the last of the agents walked out of sight behind the tree lines.

“It’s not like you to keep secrets from the U.N.,” Gabriel said.

“Another cache of confiscated weapons went missing under our watch,” Jack said. “The weapons that have been stolen earlier haven’t showed up in the black market yet. I can’t risk starting an international incident when I have nothing to go on.”

Gabriel rested his chin on Jack’s shoulder. “Good call.”

Jack tried to crane his neck to look at Gabriel, but Gabriel was pressed too close to him. “Ana is helping me investigate the ranks. She can only do so much when our resources are stretched thin. I need you to keep tabs on Blackwatch agents.”

“You need my help,” Gabriel said.

Jack might not see his smirk but he could hear it. “I need your help. There, you happy? I need confirmation that you will assist with the investigation, Gabriel.”

“I’ll do it for a favor,” Gabriel said. “It shouldn’t be difficult for you. I think you’ll even like it.”

“Let’s hear it first,” Jack said.

“You’re getting smart, Jack,” Gabriel said condescendingly. “Screw me into next week and I’ll do it. Bonus points if I can’t walk by the end of the night. How does that sound?”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“That’s me in a nutshell.”

“You ain’t as irresistible as you think,” Jack said, but his voice was rough.

Gabriel slid his hand from Jack’s back to the soft side of his throat. Jack’s pulse was fluttering under Gabriel’s thumb. Gabriel said, “It’s not what your heart is saying.”

“I can’t leave. Someone has to stay behind and clean up this mess.” Jack glanced at the bonfire.

Fareeha had wriggled into the loose space between McCree and his guitar. McCree was righting his hat over his head and tugging it down over his eyes. His poncho was bundled around his neck, like it had been the subject of too much attention in too short a span of time.

“Alright. Since you ask so nicely, I got one more song in me,” McCree said.

Fareeha whooped. “You’re the best.”

“You too, doll. You make me feel like a rock star,” McCree said, pulling his guitar into his lap. “One for the road, or whatever it is you say about bedtime lullabies.”

“I’ve never heard Mom say that about lullabies,” Fareeha said.

McCree picked at a string on his guitar. “I don’t got kids. Do you want to hear this or are you gonna fight me again?”

“Ana is watching. They’ll be fine. They won’t burn the trees down,” Gabriel said.

Ana’s name was all it took to pacify Jack. It was common knowledge that Jack trusted her more than he had trusted Gabriel. The promise of sex hadn’t hut. It had a good record of making short work of his stubborn sense of duty and turning him suggestible.

“My room?” Jack said.

“My room,” Gabriel said. “I have a surprise for you.”

Jack swallowed. His throat bobbed. He muttered, as if anyone but Gabriel was paying attention to their exchange, “You should’ve led with that one.”

“The night is young. I’m leading with it now,” Gabriel said. He pressed his thumb into the side of Jack’s neck and watched idly as Jack’s pulse quickened. “You on board?”

“Ready to move out,” Jack said, reaching out to hold Gabriel’s hand. It was warm and familiar, as if the two of them could go back to what they used to be. Jack was under the delusion that he could win back what he had thrown away if he worked hard and sweated it out, and Gabriel let him believed it.

“Think you can hold out till we reach the drop point?” Gabriel said.

“No promises.”

By the bonfire, Ana looped her arms around Fareeha, as McCree started singing:

“I guess I grew up on an old dirt road  
Pedal to the metal always did what I was told  
Till I found out that my brand new clothes  
Came second hand from the rich kids next door.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Songs quoted:**  
>  _Born in the U.S.A._ by Bruce Springsteen  
>  _Old Number 7_ by The Devil Makes Three


End file.
